THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 1, 2016
37
political legacy in Haiti is a bad-boy
former pop star from the militarist right
who took until the tail end of his term
to hold an election. I think he's prob-
ably achieved more or less what they
wanted him to: he stayed in power, didn't
kick out the U.N., didn't stand in the
way of foreign-investment projects, and
resisted political violence, just enough
to keep the country from melting down.
The fact that nearly everyone in Haiti
is worse o than they were five years
ago gets a pass. That's the tyranny of
low expectations for you."
A Western o cial in Haiti suggested
that the goal was containment. Tens of
thousands of "boat people" have fled
Haiti since the seventies, and many
have ended up in the U.S. "The bottom
line for the Western democracies is that
we don't want chaos in Haiti," the o -
cial said. "If that happens, we'll have
three million Haitians trying to find a
blade of grass to eat somewhere else."
Pam White seemed wary of form-
ing conclusions about Martelly's eth-
ics. When I asked about the allegations
that he had covered for his friends, she
said only, "You know, he had a career
for thirty years where these people were
his friends." White told me that she
and Martelly had talked at times about
the disposition of government contracts.
"He used to say to me, 'I never made a
cent o of this,' " she said. She laughed,
and added, "But, then again, why would
he tell the truth?" Even after decades,
the place seemed impenetrable. "In the
end, I only ever trusted five people in
Haiti," she told me. "I have known peo-
ple there for thirty-five years, and, you
know, they'll lie right to your face."
One afternoon, I asked Martelly
what he was going to do when
he left the Presidency: Go back on the
stage? Go into business? "I want to do
it all," he said. "But the first thing I
want to do is---when I leave o ce, it'll
be the same day as Carnival in Haiti.
I'm thinking I am going to go straight
away and get on a Carnival float. I want
to boom it out."
His real plans seem much more
tightly directed. Although Haitian law
forbids Presidents to hold consecutive
terms, they are permitted to run again
after a five-year break, and Martelly
clearly intends to hold on to his in-
fluence. When I asked him about leav-
ing o ce with so much left undone,
he said, "If there is continuity, I can
come back."
At the concert in Delmas, he intro-
duced a paisan who grew bananas, and
who had just signed a contract to sell
a hundred and fifty million euros' worth
to Germany. He turned to the line of
aides standing behind him and beck-
oned to a slender man to come for-
ward. "This is the man I have picked
to succeed me for my party," he said.
"His name is Jovenel Moïse." As the
crowd roared, Martelly said, "He looks
too skinny to be a politician, I know!"
Appearing grateful, Moïse stepped up
to speak for a moment, and then
stepped back. The crowd applauded
dutifully, and the music resumed.
For many in the country, the results
of the elections are a foregone conclu-
sion. Georges Michel, an eminent his-
torian who has advised Martelly on re-
storing Haiti's military, told me, "Martelly
is so popular among the lower classes,
who dance to him, that he could pro-
pose a dog to be elected, and they would
vote for it." The first round of elections
was held in October; Moïse, campaign-
ing as the Banana Man, was the front-
runner, with thirty-three per cent of the
vote. Jude Célestin, who lost out to Mar-
telly in 2011, came in second, and quickly
protested that the process was unfair:
Haiti's electoral commission found prob-
lems with eighty per cent of the ballots.
As the runo was postponed, until late
January, Célestin argued that it should
be cancelled and an interim government
formed. But the Western o cial told
me, "We are funding these elections, and,
frankly, we are not going to allow that.
If Célestin doesn't want to compete, then
the other man is going to win."
Moïse's plantation sits near the coast,
in a place called Trou-du-Nord---Hole
of the North. One morning, I met him
there, in a town-size square of vividly
green banana trees fringed by moun-
tains. Moïse was talking jovially with
workers as they loaded freshly cut ba-
nana stems onto a truck. One said, teas-
ingly, "Mr. President, you're leaving us
behind, Papa." Moïse laughed, and de-
nied that he would ever leave.
He was being shadowed by a Ger-
man man, a quality-control inspector
from Fruit Logistics, the company that
had signed the export agreement with
him. With an Eagle Scout's enthusi-
asm, Moïse explained that his planta-
tion had twenty-five hundred acres
planted in bananas; it would eventu-
ally expand to fifteen thousand acres.
There were three thousand workers,
who belonged to a coöperative that
held equity in the business. In a week,
he would send o a shipment---Haiti's
first export of bananas in sixty years.
"We used to be the No. 1 banana ex-
porter in the Caribbean, and after
1955---nothing," he said.
Moïse had trained as a water-
treatment engineer, but he became
convinced that the coastal plain was
exceptionally fertile, and had drawn up
plans for a plantation. He had met with
Martelly early in his term and asked
him for support. At first, Martelly re-
sisted, telling him that he was "crazy,"
but he was eventually won over. The
two joined an agricultural delegation
to Europe, where Moïse, at a confer-
ence of fruit importers, secured the
Germans' interest.
The President's backing had been
crucial, he said: "Without political
power, this country can't be developed."
With that in mind, he had decided
last spring to run for parliament. Mar-
telly dissuaded him, saying that there
were two other candidates vying for
the seat. He had a better idea: "I think
you can be the next President." Mar-
telly told him that he would back him
if he agreed to run.
"I talked to my wife," Moïse recalled,
laughing. "She said to me, 'You have
to run. You are like Messi or Jesus
Christ. It's your job to save Haiti.'"
Moïse o ered a brisk plan, strikingly
like Martelly's, to save the country: "Ag-
riculture, tourism, construction, busi-
ness, outsourcing. We have seventy-
five thousand government employees
who give only ten per cent of their
work capacity. We will try and get them
to thirty per cent. We have the people
and the knowledge---it's the mental-
ity we lack." He seemed enlivened by
campaigning. "It's exciting, because I
like my country, and I am a winner,"
he said. "I am going to win!" I asked if
he and Martelly had a twenty-year plan
in mind, trading places in the Presi-
dency. Moïse nodded. "Yes. It's a good
plan. We need stability. We need it."